Techdirt’s Mike Masnick takes Engadget’s JD Lasica to task over his interview with Danger CEO Hank Nothhaft:
I’m a bit disappointed that he doesn’t dig a little deeper. The biggest complaint about the Sidekick (and the main reason I have little interest in upgrading my original Sidekick to the new one, rather than a different option) is just how closed the Sidekick platform is. While Nothhaft says anyone can develop for the Sidekick, that’s only true in the sense that anyone can develop for the Sidekick if they don’t mind that almost all of that development effort will be completely wasted, unless you beg and plead and convince T-Mobile and/or Danger to include your application. You can’t even upload your own apps to test them, but can only run them on an emulator. In other words: no developer community.
Gives me flashbacks to the early days of the HipTop when the developer program was eternally coming soon and it took forever just to get information on the HipTop’s web browser. These days developers actually can upload programs via USB — it’s no longer necessary to switch to the Developer OS / Back-end. But the developer site is just as lame as it was in the begining and there is still zero information on getting an application into the Catalog. Even AT&T’s developer site does better — and that is hardly a friendly place.
Prediction: If the A630 comes to market — unfortunately not something that Motorola always manages to accomplish — at the rumoured $250-$300 price-point it will eat Danger’s lunch. Here’s a Phonescoop feature comparison between the A630 and all three Sidekick models. The A630 is open to developers, runs real J2ME apps, has Bluetooth, SyncML, the whole nine yards. Plus it’s smaller than the Sidekick II and considerably more attractive / less dorky.
Damn, I’ve already broken my new rule on posting about unreleased phones. OFW!
